


Just a Country Boy

by snowpuppies



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-05
Updated: 2009-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowpuppies/pseuds/snowpuppies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about leaving home...and coming back. Oh, yeah, and there are demons and stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Country Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [Kitty Poker](http://kitty-poker1.livejournal.com/).

You're just a country boy.

You live in your small town where there are more cows than there are people and the greatest excitement is the annual tractor pull.

You know nearly everyone, recognize faces, if not names, and you don't remember the last time you met someone new who didn't know at least one of your relatives.

Most of them _are_ your relatives.

But this is where you live; you're a country boy and these are your people and your world is defined by a series of green signs that say "Huxley, Iowa".

And outside? Outside is vast…

…it's a mystery and a puzzle, and sometimes it's a nightmare.

You're at the same time terrified and tantalized by what might be elsewhere, away from Huxley and away from Iowa and cows and tractors and fields of corn. And no matter how frightening, how big and scary the rest of the world is, Huxley's boundaries begin to tighten around you, closing in until you can't move, can't breathe, until you're being crushed by small people and small minds and a small world and you're just a country boy but you're becoming a man and you feel something rip and you step away and leave your skin behind and you go…

…out to meet the world in its own back yard.

 

***

 

You're just a country boy, and the university at Sunnydale is loud and noisy and there are many, many more people than cows—it's been months since you've seen a cow—and you knew the world was big, but really, you had no idea.

You've never seen so many people.

And the campus is nearly the size of your town, altogether.

You only get lost twice, though.

The guy in the dorm room across the hall is from India; you spent hours one afternoon helping him look for his 'torch', only to discover he was looking for the flashlight you'd borrowed the day before.

So many people, so many languages and cultures…

It's all so…_overwhelming_.

And that's not counting the classes.

College is crazy.

You're just a country boy, but in this hodgepodge of people from around the globe…you fit right in.

You think you like it.

 

***

 

You're just a country boy, and you never knew demons existed. Hell, you never knew a lot of things existed, but when you find out…all your fears about what lurked in the great, wide world are justified.

And you want to make a difference, have a life that doesn’t involve livestock and crop rotation…

…and you wonder if _this_ is the reason you felt compelled to leave home, if maybe you were _meant_ to fight the monsters, to do good, to make the world a safer place…

…so you join.

And you learn…

The Initiative is structured.

It's rigid and organized and orderly.

There are rules.

You follow them.

(You've seen what happens when you don't.)

Gone is the hodgepodge; round pegs in round holes you are, your team a family, brothers, united, in a common cause.

You're a soldier. It feels right—you fit perfectly into the hierarchy. It's a system; you can see the rungs of the ladder, feel the support below and above and all around…

In a way, it's almost like being home.

Of course, there were no demons in Huxley. Well, not that you knew of, anyhow.

So you study, and you train—learn how to identify Polgaras and M'Fashniks, how to use stun-guns and tranqs, how to communicate with your team and your superiors—it's like nothing you've ever done, and you're _good_ at it.

You were a country boy, but now you're a soldier.

 

***

 

You're a country boy, and a soldier, but you're also just a guy.

And you meet a girl, and she's beautiful, if not so great with the talking, but that's ok, neither are you and, somehow, that seems to make sense.

Of course, that means saying things like "I really like you" or "How about lunch?" or even "You've got ketchup on your shirt" is nearly impossible, and you begin to doubt that such a beautiful girl would really want to be with you, anyways.

Besides, there is the secret double-life of a demon hunter to consider.

So you kinda give up.

You wanted meaning in your life and now you have it—you're a soldier—and you don't need anything more, so you shove away the tingles you get when she's around, you ignore the way your heart leaps into your throat when she smiles and you pretend she's just another student.

 

Until the words are taken away.

 

Her lips are soft and she's warm and bright and the way she lights up a cold and dreary night on the Hellmouth reminds you of the way the sunrise paints the fields back home—orange and purple and gold—the moment the sun kisses the crops good morning and they begin to _grow_…

It's everything you thought it would be, and more.

And best of all? She's got a secret identity, too.

You're just a country boy, but you know love is the most powerful feeling in the world.

And you think that it won't matter, not one bit, where you're at or where you go—Iowa, California…outer Mongolia—just as long as _she's_ there.

 

***

 

You're just a country boy, and you've never claimed to be the smartest guy.

You were taught to believe the Truth and live your life accordingly, but lately the truth seems a bit muddled.

Or maybe it's that everyone has their own version.

It's a nice thought, but it doesn't help a lot when the world is crumbling around you and everything you've believed seems false, and all around are people brandishing their own version of the 'truth', urging you to grab hold, and they'll pull you to safety…

…and any one of them might lead to quicksand.

And so, as you're falling, as right and wrong blend into a swirling, ubiquitous mass of grey, you remember your mother and how before you left—while you were in a whirlwind of packing and planning, swept up by the excitement of _change_—she'd called you a good boy and told you to always follow your heart, and so you open your ears, your eyes, your heart and _listen_, and you know exactly what to do.

It's not easy.

But what's right rarely is.

And so you follow your heart, and the world explodes.

 

Well, some of it, at least.

 

A soldier no longer, you become just a country boy, again; a country boy in love with an extraordinary girl.

And she's still beautiful and your heart still skips a beat when she smiles, but you're a round peg that's become square and you just don't _fit_ any more, and somewhere between desperation and despair you slip…

…and mistake a lie for the truth…

 

…and the girl stops smiling.

 

And it _hurts_, oh, it hurts like nothing you've ever felt before, and as surely as love is the most wonderful feeling in the world, it's also the most terrible, and you realize that nothing you do is enough and you'll never quite fit and all the love you have won't fit an ordinary country boy into the life of a Slayer, and so you grit your teeth…

…and close your eyes…

…and go.

 

You're a country boy, and you're going home.

 

***

 

You're just a country boy.

You return to your small town, smiling as you pass the green sign that says "Huxley, Iowa".

You hug your momma three times in the first ten minutes.

You say hello to everyone, meeting the new folks—there are only a few—and they all know who you are, even before you're introduced.

You smile at the cows and attend the annual tractor pull.

It's the same as it's always been, but it doesn't seem so small, not really, because Huxley is a part of the world, a world in which there are things (and people) both bad and good.

And you realize that home seems so different, not because Huxley's changed, but because _you_ have.

There are things in the world that threaten your way of life, the people you love, but you know how to fight them. And so, when you get the call, you go, not because you can't stand Huxley's small-town ways any more, but because you _love_ them, and you won't let anyone or any_thing_ take that away.

You're just a country boy, and you'll fight to keep it that way.

 

 

_FIN_.

 

Originally archived [here](http://snowpuppies.livejournal.com/193975.html).


End file.
